START WITH WHY by Simon Sinek (2009)
Why am I enthralled with books about self-improvement? Maybe to find a new healthy direction in my retirement? Maybe to gain confidence in my ability to navigate the ‘Post-COVID New Normal’? Or maybe to help me to make plans for a livable, post-emergency future? Who knows? After what the world has been through in the last three years, so much of our future is uncertain, depending on the level of disruption COVID has caused us, our family and our community—financially, economically, socially and mentally. Chin up!
I remember, last year writing about a book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (1937). It wasn’t about making money at any cost but rather about personal achievement. The philosophy came from Andrew Carnegie, who wanted to share the lessons he had learned on the way to becoming the richest man in the world. He hired Napoleon Hill to interview the 500 richest, most successful businessmen of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and to summarize their philosophies of how to achieve success. At the end of twenty years of research, Napoleon wrote Think and Grow Rich, including a list of twelve ‘enduring riches of life’, all of which someone following his lessons should aspire to possess:
- Positive mental attitude
- Sound physical health
- Harmony in all human relations
- Freedom from fear (6 fears: losing money, criticism, old age, loss of love, death and ill health)
- Hope of future achievement
- Capacity for applied faith (an unfailing belief)
- Willingness to share one’s blessings with others
- A labour of love (loving the work you do)
- An open mind on all subjects at all times
- Complete self-discipline
- Capacity to understand people
- Financial security
Napoleon outlined the laws of success and set the standard for today’s motivational thinking. Success is not an accident; it’s a habit that leads to a life of prosperity. It’s important to note that financial security is the last on the list of twelve enduring riches of life.
In 2009, Simon Sinek, a trained ethnographer, started a movement to help people become more inspired at work, and in turn to inspire their colleagues and customers. He wrote Leaders Eat Last which speaks for itself, and he can be seen and heard in YouTube videos. His TED Talk, Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, was the third most popular TED video of all time. In that talk he focused on Steve Jobs, among others, and the ‘Why’ of Apple—to make computers available to the general public and easy to use. People bought into his ‘Why’, putting purpose at the heart of Apple’s business, and many, myself included, remained loyal fans of Apple products, even when Apple branched out from computers to phones and other innovative devices. This philosophy beat out the competition, and it reminds me to ask myself, “But WHY am I doing this?”
Fiona